So, the Welsh Government has been in the vanguard of the calls for reform, and our calls have been echoed by the committee reports, both here and in the UK Parliament.

Now, we set out our position on these matters in ‘Brexit and Devolution’, which we published in the summer of 2017. ‘Brexit and Devolution’ argued for standing inter-governmental machinery capable of negotiating and reaching binding decisions on matters of common UK-wide interest. We recommended the establishment of a UK council of Ministers, for independent arbitration to resolve disputes, and for all of this machinery to be supported by a new independent secretariat.

The existing Joint Ministerial Committee, in its various manifestations, is a consultative body that has no decision-making responsibilities. Its operations have been unduly subject to the control of the UK Government rather than based on parity of participation, which is the principle that we’ve been looking for.

Now, when we published ‘Brexit and Devolution’, we recognised that some of our proposals would be challenging, particularly for the UK Government, and we’ve never professed to have all the answers. We’ve been clear that all four of the administrations of the United Kingdom need to work together to develop consensus about how the relations between the Governments of the United Kingdom should be conducted in the future. So, we welcome the agreement at JMC plenary in March 2018 that the Governments should jointly conduct a review of inter-governmental relations.

Now, at the latest JMC meeting on 19 December, the First Minister emphasised to the Prime Minister that the Welsh Government had hoped for more progress on the review by now. That said, we do recognise that whilst this work is of critical importance, it’s also very difficult. We need to achieve a meaningful consensus for substantive change between all four nations of the UK. Now, each of those Governments has their own political perspectives and their own distinctive takes, both on how Governments should work together and on the wider constitutional status of the UK. And you’ll appreciate, of course, that Ministers and officials across all administrations need space for confidential discussions around the review. But we, as a Government, will ensure that the Assembly and its committees are kept up to date with the review as far as is possible, whilst respecting that need for confidentiality. It’s our intention to provide a more formal update to Members as soon as we’re able.

The original instruction from JMC plenary was for a report on progress to be made to a JMC meeting in March this year. Now, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that no date has been fixed for such a meeting. But I would hope that we’ll be in a position to provide an update when that meeting takes place.

Now, whilst progress on the formal review has been slower than we'd have liked, there are encouraging developments more widely. We’re achieving incremental change in terms of the willingness of Whitehall departments to formally engage with the devolved administrations in a meaningful way where there are strong interdependencies between reserved and devolved competence—where there's a force of circumstance, really, as a by-product of Brexit. There's increasing recognition, for example, that where international negotiations are likely to lead to a change in policy in areas that are within devolved competence, then it's essential to engage fully and properly with the devolved institutions before, during and at the end of such negotiations to prevent subsequent constitutional conflict.     

I think we need to be realistic here. If we try to insist that we must have a veto over international agreements—something that is not the case even in fully federal systems such as Australia and Canada—we will simply fail to achieve any progress. Rather, as a Government, we'll continue to argue forcefully for a meaningful role in negotiations and for undertakings that the UK Government will not normally attempt directly, or indirectly, to implement changes to legislation within devolved competence that we do not agree with, and for mechanisms to ensure that where we do not agree, Parliament is invited to consider fully our objections before authorising such an action.

Of particular relevance to our discussion today is the agreement by the Department for International Trade to the establishment of a ministerial forum on trade, on which I represent the Welsh Government. You'll be aware that this was a matter that was discussed with the external affairs committee on Monday this week. But the focus of this debate is the agreement that has been tabled by the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, which will set out the information that the Welsh Government will make available to the Assembly about the conduct of its relations with the other nations of the United Kingdom.

In essence, the agreement consists of two main elements. Firstly, it sets out how we will keep the Assembly updated on formal intergovernmental activity as it happens, so to speak, meaning that we will provide the Assembly with information about the participation of Welsh Ministers in informal intergovernmental structures. This covers discussions and agreements of various formats of the Joint Ministerial Committee—for example its plenary, its heads of Government format, the JMC for EU negotiations, the JMC (Europe) and the ministerial forum on the future relationship between the UK and the EU—but it also covers the British-Irish Council, and it will cover other standing or ad hoc multilateral and bilateral inter-ministerial forums of similar standing that currently exist, or may be established in the future. That would encapsulate the formal ministerial quadrilaterals that exist for finance and for agriculture, as well as new forums that are emerging across a number of portfolio areas.

Now, for these forums, the agreement requires us to provide one month's advance written notice to CLAC and to relevant subjects, where that's possible. We'll certainly meet that requirement where we can, but as other Members have noted today, we as a Government don't often receive that much notice of an agreed date for such forums ourselves. So, following the meeting, we'll provide a written summary of the issues discussed at the meeting within two weeks of that meeting taking place.

The second element of the agreement is for the production of an annual report. This will summarise the key outputs from activity subject to the provisions of the agreement, and provide commentary on broader intergovernmental relations work that is being undertaken that year.